Team Valor, Motion reunite for Little Silver
Team Valor International and trainer Graham Motion will have their first starter together in more than two years when English import Affileo starts in the first division of the Little Silver Stakes at Monmouth Park on Sunday.
Barry Irwin, the head of Team Valor, and Motion have not teamed up since June 2013, when Animal Kingdom made the final start of his amazing career in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot. At the time, Irwin wanted a private trainer for Team Valor, but Motion declined the position, opting to keep his growing operation public.
The breakup came two months after Animal Kingdom won the $10 million Dubai World Cup. Two years earlier, Animal Kingdom had scored an upset victory in the Kentucky Derby for Motion and Irwin.
After the split, Richard Mettee became Team Valor’s private trainer. That relationship came to an end last year, and Irwin currently has horses split among 18 trainers.
“Graham and I flew back on the same flight from Dubai in March, and I told him I missed having horses with him,” Irwin said. “I said I’d like to send him some, and he said, ‘I certainly hope so.’ ”
In addition to Affileo, Motion has one other horse for Team Valor. Irwin said there will be more to follow.
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“I have one earmarked for him, an Arch colt named Spuyten Duyvil who is our best 2-year-old,” he said. “He’s a homebred and the first foal out of a nice mare we raced named Chantilly Nayla.”
The Little Silver Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for 3-year-old fillies, has been split into two divisions. Affileo is in the first, and easier, division. The second division is topped by My Year Is a Day, trained by Motion; Pine Needles, conditioned by Christophe Clement; and the Chad Brown-trained Kitten’s Roar.
Affileo has made three starts, two on the synthetic surface at Wolverhampton and the most recent on turf in the Oaks Trial at Lingfield. Team Valor purchased her after she won her debut by five lengths. She came back to win a small handicap in her second race.
“She kind of disappointed in the Oaks Trial,” Irwin said. “We were going to bring her over later in the year but after that race figured we might as well go ahead and do it. She’s had three works. The first two were okay, but the last was very good, and that’s why we’re running her here.”
Irwin said Affileo is “talented” and has “a nice turn of foot,” but that whatever she does Sunday, he expects “two races down the line will be much better.”
The horses to beat in the wide-open race may be Kawfee Fa Marfa, trained by Rick Violette, and Gypsy Judy, from the barn of Robin Graham.
In race 10, My Year Is a Day will be making her second U.S. start. She was bet down to 2-1 in the Edgewood Stakes on Kentucky Oaks Day at Churchill Downs but was rank to the backstretch and finished fifth. She has worked eight times since May 23 at Fair Hill, and improvement can be expected. Motion entered My Year Is a Day in the Grade 2 Lake George at Saratoga on Friday but scratched her in favor of this easier spot.
Pine Needles led the field into the stretch of the $1 million Belmont Oaks on July 4 but tired to finish ninth in the 1 1/4-mile race. Prior to that, she finished third – beaten a half-length by Lady Eli – in the $200,000 Wonder Again Stakes. Three starts back, she finished a close second to Consumer Credit in the Memories of Silver Stakes.
Kitten’s Roar is 2 for 3 in her career. She enters off a first-level optional-claiming win at Belmont Park.